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Thursday, July 25, 2013

Dessert chef Casey Feldstein doesn’t know a
knitting needle from a crochet hook. But after her aunt dies
unexpectedly, leaving Casey to run her yarn retreat
business, the sweets baker finds herself rising to the
occasion—and trying to unravel a murder mystery...

When Casey finds out that her late aunt’s business,
Yarn2Go, has one more yarn retreat scheduled, she decides to
go ahead and host the event, despite her complete lack of
experience as a knitter. At least the retreat is on the
beautiful Monterey Peninsula.

But the idyllic setting is soured when a retreat regular is
found murdered in her hotel room. Feeling a sense of
responsibility, Casey begins to weave the clues together and
detects a pattern which may shed light on her aunt’s
suspicious death. Despite the danger, the last thing Casey
plans to do is retreat. She’ll catch this killer...or
dye trying.

Includes a knitting pattern and a recipe!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

I grew up on the south side of Chicago and in a very busy
weekend, got married, graduated college and moved to Los
Angeles.

Although my degree is in Fine Arts, all I ever wanted to be
was a writer and I've been doing it in one form or another
for as long as I can remember. My shining moments in
elementary and high school always involved stories or poetry
I'd written. I wrote news stories and a weekly column in my
college newspaper. My first job out of college was working
on the newsletter of a finance company. I worked for a
public relations firm and wrote press releases and
biographies. Later I wrote proposals for video projects and
television shows that went through various stages of
development.

I tried writing screenplays and wrote three. I sold one and
another was a winner in a Writers' Digest contest.

I was lucky enough to be a stay-at-home mom and did all
kinds of volunteering at my son's schools including editing
and writing several newsletters.

I wrote essays and small pieces that ran in the Los
Angeles Times, the Daily News and Woman's
Day among others. My short romantic and mystery fiction
appeared in Woman's World, and Futures magazine.

My affair with crochet began in Las Vegas. I had always had
a fascination with crochet, particularly granny squares, but
thought there was some magic involved with making them that
was beyond me. And then everything changed that day in Vegas
when I saw the kids' kit in FAO Schwartz. If the
instructions were easy enough for kids, I thought they might
work for me.

My first granny square was missing a corner, but when I
tried again, all four corners were there. I was in awe of my
own accomplishment. I had found the magic. I went granny
square crazy until pretty soon I didn't need directions
anymore. Then I learned there were more squares than just
basic grannies and I made squares with sunflowers in the
middle and other patterns. I moved beyond squares and made
flowers, hearts, bookmarks and more.

I was in love with crochet and began to make scarves,
purses, afghans, and shawls. I started carrying my hooks
everywhere. A plane trip became a pile of granny square wash
cloths, or part of a shawl. A vacation in Hawaii turned into
a tote bag.

And now I get to write about it.

AN EXCERPT FROM YARN TO GO:

I was in the middle of laying out the ingredients for my carrot muffins when the call came.
It's lucky I hadn't started mixing them, because you can't just run off and abandon muffin
batter for an hour and expect it to be okay. I didn't even understand who it was at first.
All I heard was something about no refund on a credit card bill, the word retreat and that
I "better do something about it."

"Who is this?" I said when the caller finally took a breath.

"Casey, this is Tag Thornkill," an exasperated voice responded. He could have left off the
last name. I mean, it's not like I know a bunch of Tags. Immediately my demeanor changed from
irritated at the interruption to concerned. Tag is my current employer, or half of the pair,
anyway. He and his wife Lucinda own the Blue Door restaurant, which is where I presently work.
I'm the dessert chef. Tag doesn't know it, but I also bake muffins for some coffee spots in
town using the Blue Door's kitchen. Lucinda had given her okay and saw no problem with the
arrangement as long as I brought in my own ingredients.

So every night when the restaurant closes and everyone has left, I come in and bake the
restaurant's desserts for the next day, along with batches of muffins for the next day's
coffee drinkers.

Let me be clear from the start: I'm not one of those fancy cooking school graduates who does
French pastry. TO FINISH READING THIS EXCERPT, VISIT BETTY HECHTMAN'S WEBSITE HERE.

SOME OTHER BOOKS BY BETTY HECHTMAN:

GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO KAYLEIGH AND THE GOOD FOLKSAT BERKLEY PRIME CRIME AND PENGUIN BOOKS,I HAVE ONE COPY OF YARN TO GO,TO GIVE AWAY TO A LUCKY READER

--U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES
---INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
IN CASE YOU WIN!
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE TOCOUNT AS MORE THAN ONE!HOW TO ENTER:

+1 ENTRY:COMMENT ON WHAT YOU READ ABOVE ABOUT YARN TO GO THAT MADE YOU WANT TO WIN THIS BOOK, AND DON'T FORGET YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS

+1 MORE ENTRY:BLOG AND/OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND COME BACK HERE AND LEAVE ME YOUR LINK

+1 MORE ENTRY:COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FIND INTERESTING AT BETTY HECTMAN'S WEBSITEHERE

+1 MORE ENTRY:COMMENT ON ONE WAY YOU FOLLOW MY BLOG. IF YOU FOLLOW MORE THAN ONE WAY, YOU CAN COMMENT SEPARATELY AND EACH WILL COUNT AS AN ENTRY

+1 MORE ENTRY:COMMENT ON A CURRENT GIVEAWAY THAT YOU HAVE ENTERED ON MY BLOG. IF YOU ENTERED MORE THAN ONE, YOU MAY COMMENT SEPARATELY FOR EACH TO RECEIVE MORE ENTRIES

Thanks to all!

Sadly, we will be saying good bye to Bookin' With Bingo early next month. Things just have been too hectic so we have chosen to close down with hopes for a new "BWB" someday. Thanks to all and KEEP READING!